Sunday, September 5, 2010

There is nothing new about the new Apple TV, some tech bloggers and publishers confirm. Besides the price almost all of them see something very similar than the previous Apple TV and I am not talking about technical changes, like streaming vs. syncing or size, because there are some obvious evolutions there... but the one that impacted me the most and made me realize that we should be TV ready is the AirPlay future!!!

AirPlay will not only allow to stream video content from your iPod, iPhone, MacBook or iPad. In the future (and I think early next year) will be open to stream any kind content from these sources. what is this potentially amazing?

Let's talk about the obvious potential benefits:

1.- Gaming:

Kids, young adults... all gamers will be able to bring to the big screen their games, while keept the ipod or iphone as their joystick with all it's current capabilities (motion, speed, etc) but not only that... a big screen will bring not only a zoom to current screens (like the iPhone apps behave on an iPad) but I assume the apps will have the iPhone user interface and the one to be streamed taking advantage of the TV screen with more content and better images (in size terms) . Multiplayer with out a console? in a big screen? and with best joystick? (buttons on my phone to control the games on TV... the joystick creativity will explode, between motion and now having private images for the player or new controls ideas...

2.- Video / TV new and better sources

It is very difficult to do alliances and partnerships in all over the world with all the TV networks and content producers, but what will happen if they can serve them selves and can create their own apps (by show or by channel). We will be able to have the Time Warner Cable, DirecTV, Dish, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN apps not only to stream recorded content, but to see live content and pay per subscription or on-demand and they will be able to set up their own prices.... But better than that we will have an user interface competence between all of them. I see a 2011/12 in where my CNN app will allow me to stream the live news to my TV while having the user to interact with the content on my phone... (stocks graphs, references links to wikipedia or related news on my phone) I will be able to stream the US Open from CBS and have all the statistics and tournament info on my phone or iPad, like the way we do today, but live, not with a delay and with the capability to have an extra level of interactivity (replays, camera control, tickets to buy, etc...) I know you might say " today we can do that" and it is true, but in the future will be just with ONE click, just ONE app will bring you all of these features... convenience will drive the more and better content consumption and interaction.

We wont have any more boxes next to our TV in our home in 2015 and 2011 will be the beginning... the phone or tablet will be our box to manage video content, live and recorded.

the utility for other industries will be amazing! no more laptops to connect in the meeting rooms, schools sharing the best technology at a low price but great volume, Zagat will give us the info of the restaurant, while we stream a slide show or video of this one to share it with our friend and family in the living room before leaving to have dinner.

The TV wont be the 3rd screen for the users... will be our best extension in where we will be able to stream our recorded and LIVE content.

why this will be also a great opportunity for Apple? They are on the content distribution business, but also in the apps business... they will be making more money... they do not have to build the marketplace trying to sell a new console... they already have hundreds of millions of iPhones, iPods and iPads around the world who will be ready to push content to their TVs...

Now I know why the Apple TV was a hobby... because (I think) that will be just a temporary enabler, but in the future I think Apple will allow TV Manufacturers to implement AirPlay as a standard component...

Thanks for readying these ideas, I am sure you must have great ones and will be great if you share those with us